


The Argument of Time

by Ambrose



Series: Dare to Write Challenge [18]
Category: Winter's Tale - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, F/F, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8500051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrose/pseuds/Ambrose
Summary: "Pauline is an immortal living in a modern city. The only other character still living is Hermione, who is bitter because she didn't ask to be brought back to life as this inhuman thing just to watch all her loved ones die off."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RatherCharmingVermin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RatherCharmingVermin/gifts).



It takes Paulina all she has of energy to go up to Mount Pellegrino, but she does the trek every night. It's not so much the climb, as the mental toll. Hermione stands there, in her statue form, ignoring her. She spends her days here, as a statue of Santa Rosalia, listening to the pilgrims during the day, sometimes providing council in what they take as a miracle, most often just being the gentle ear to which they can confide their pains and struggles without knowing anyone can hear them. Sometimes, when no-one is there, she weeps.

Paulina knows, she's seen the streaks left in the stone by the salted tears Hermione didn't care to wipe away. 

But when Paulina comes to see her, she is only ever faced with her stern statue face, nothing like the woman she had known, the woman she had loved so much - more even than her husband - so much that she brought her back to life. For centuries Paulina had been coming here, a daily walk, come rain or snow, to try and make Hermione see reason. But what little magic Hermione had received when Paulina brought her back, she used it to stay here, immobile, and help whoever she could. And as noble as allaying the poor pilgrims' sorrows was - as noble as Hermione herself had always been - Paulina felt the need to convince her she did not need to pay for other people's sins for eternity.

She left the food she had brought Hermione at her feet, like an offering to the goddess that she was. Was this the fate of Pygmalion and his Galatea too? 

"You don't need to bring me food." Hermione looked down at her, for the first time in over a decade. She prodded the platter with the tip of a marble foot. 

"I know." Paulina looked up to her. "But I know you like them. There are never any left when I come back."

"I give them to the hungry."

Paulina smiled. "And you eat some too. You could never resist a lokum when some traveller brought some to court."

"Don't remind me of the past," she sighed.

"Why not? Aren't you dwelling in it all day?"

" _You_ did this to me! I never chose to be... this!" Hermione burst out. "Why do you have to come here every single day and rub it in? I look at you and I see all that I lost!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... You know that." 

"When you try something, you accept its consequences. But what about me? You never gave me a choice," Hermione repeated. She moved, suddenly, sitting down on her pedestal to look at Paulina right in the eyes. "Why?"

"You know why. What happened to you was unfair. I only meant to bring you back as you were before, that you would get to live your life fully as you deserved before Leontes..."

"And that is why you gave me back to him!"

"No! I thought... I thought everyone was dead, your daughter - if it had only been him, I'd have hidden you away, I'd have left with you, we'd have lived somewhere far away where he would never have found out! But you would have hated me if I never gave you the chance to see Perdita... And then when he came along _you_  chose to appear alive to him! You asked me to —"

"What was I supposed to do? I had my daughter in front of me, and you wanted me to ignore her?"

"To not go back to him, yes!"

"I was never like you, Paulina. You stand up for yourself, you do what you want. But he looked so weak, and you promised me, you _promised me_  he was repentant!"

"I said he was a man and like every other man could change his mind like the wind."

"Even so," Hermione interrupted her, dryly. "What did you expect? Perdita would have seen me whenever she found the time to visit you, like a demon in a closet, something to be ashamed of? I would never really have been her mother! And that doesn't change what you did! That doesn't change this - this curse! She would have died, like they all died, and you and I just left to watch over it! And I never knew what you were, or where you got these powers, but I never asked for it! And if Leontes never truly repented for what he did to me, and to my Mamillius, and to your husband, I am not him, and I have to repent for my soul."

"By pretending to be a saint? Hermione, you know better than this... We're immortal. If you've been given a soul, then it will stay where it is, not ascend or go to hell." She nudged the plate of Turkish delights towards her, making it a peace offering more than it ever was. "If anyone should repent here, it's me. You know it. That's why you hate me. I don't blame you. But if I had to do it all over again, I would. Differently, maybe, but even if I looked into it more before trying anything, I'd still do it. Whatever the cost. You didn't deserve to have your life taken away, and I couldn't stand by, not with the powers I had to fix it."

Hermione sighed and took a sweet, but still did not acknowledge her. After a time, she did speak. "These may be the only thing in this world that didn't change. Besides you and me, I mean."

"You should see how easily you can have them nowadays! You're missing so much on the world, Hermione! But of course we have changed. Four centuries of listening to other people's plight cannot have left you the same. But you need to stop blaming yourself!" she repeated. "It will not bring them back!"

"You could have!"

Ah, there it was. She knew there was more to it than pure anger. "I could not. I was allowed one life, Hermione, one. I had to choose. Don't you think I'd have saved my dear husband too if I could? That was the price I paid. I did not think you would have to pay it too. I just... did not think." She admitted. "Don't waste my sacrifice?" she pleaded, but Hermione did not answer.

The silence stretched between them, and the first lights started to appear on the horizon. Paulina sighed. "Good night, Hermione. You know where to find me, if you ever change your mind."

She did not go back that day, nor the day after, nor the day after. 

A week after that argument took place, the first pilgrims to appear were dumbfounded to find that the statue of St Rosalia had disappeared. Most thought it had been stolen, but the tokens, gifts, and coins left for her were still there. Some thought it was a miracle. So did Paulina when Hermione came to knock on the door of her small house in Palermo, not far from where she'd stood, silent, for four centuries after her daughter's death. 


End file.
